I've just taken delivery of a 'new' Ultra 5. It's a while since I've had a Sparc and I'm struggling to boot any iso's. I think this is due to the media I'm using. Can't anyone remind me wht CDs these machines accept. I know they don't do CDRW, but need to know which they will accept, before buying some more.

i did not know you needed special cd media for the ultra5. I've had a few ultra5 and ultra10 some years ago and never had any problems with any cds for booting.
on the other hand, yearlier this year i did have problems booting a cdrom on a sunblade100, i ended up netbooting the machine, by then i had burned at least 10cds of different types and iso-files and no-go.

the sparc netboot guide still works pretty good _________________skammastu thin svo

I'm still struggling to work out whether my CDROM device is set correctly. I'm struggling a bit with devalias, though. I Googled my CDROM device and it should support the CD's I have, so I think the problem is OBP, not the CD's. I looked at the Gentoo guide and am still stuck, so I'll look at the other links at the end of the Gentoo document.

When I do devalias, I notice that I have two entries for cdrom! Is it possible to delete one, as I only have one cdrom device?

Last time I needed to change the cdrom devalias (a couple of years ago), I used a command that allowed me to yank (copy) a device path straight into something like devalias. This meant I didn't miss any characters out. Can anyone remind me what that command me have been?

Well I now have one devalias for cdrom, so that's better. Unfortunately I am still no further forward than this. Can anyone give me a step-by-step guide to seeing how my cdrom is identified (or where) and then help me to associate that location with the cdrom alias. I've done and un-done this so many times, that I have got myself confused, now. Failing this, I may need to do the RARP thing which looks intimidating.

is your cdrom connected as master or slave settings ? default settings are that it is as master on the secondary controller, if i remember correctly. maybe your settings are not so default anymore it would be great if it would solve your problem to change the cable order in your box.

shame i dont have my ultra10 no more. and i cannot access the opb on my sunblade to check the device parameters because its always on

how does your devalias look like ?

you shouldn't be intimidated by rarp. in my opinion it a lot easier work then the opm. probably the easiest way for you is to boot the tftpimage via windows._________________skammastu thin svo

Really sorry, guys. I just burned another cd-r and it booted first time. Rather than suspecting the good old Ultra was at fault, I forgot that the problem could be between the keyboard and seat (me). Thanks for all the replies.